Jobs cut at ailing tile firm

There is speculation that Swallow's Tiles could be forced to close down

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A huge question mark hangs over the future of Cranleigh’s oldest business after jobs were axed and council planners blocked a housing development.

Stephen Kerr, managing director of Swallow’s Tiles, has denied rumours spreading round the village that the 148-year-old company will close in March.

But the business was last week forced to make six redundancies among its 15-strong workforce.

“I feel very sad,” said Mr Kerr. “Closing is not an option we want to take, but we are in the real world and we cannot go on losing money at the rate we are.”

He admitted a decision by Waverley Borough Council’s planning officers to use delegated powers to reject the company's housing proposals had thrown its future into doubt.

The firm wants to build a new, energy-efficient factory elsewhere on its Bookhurst Road site, and replace the existing outdated and inefficient facilities with housing.

'Demand for tiles'

Mr Kerr said new homes were the only way Swallow's could afford to pay for a new factory, and keep the local tradition of handmade tile production alive.

“We know there is a demand for our tiles and we have got enough clay here for well over 100 years,” he said, explaining that the company had just been contracted to re-roof one of the buildings at Hampton Court.

But since taking over the previously family-owned firm in 1999, he said British Ensign Estates had ploughed around £400,000 into Swallow’s and spent more than £250,000 on fees since embarking on the planning process.

Its first housing scheme for a total of 106 properties was withdrawn in the face of strong resistance at both parish and borough level, with the result that a new proposal for 47 houses, including 14 affordable dwellings, was submitted last autumn.

Subject to certain concerns it felt needed addressing, this won the approval of Cranleigh Parish Council, but then came last month’s bombshell news that the application had been turned down at Waverley under delegated powers.